


notches

by bukkunkun



Category: Persona 2
Genre: Character Study, Family Feels, Family Fluff, Flashbacks, Future Fic, Gen, Height Differences, Nostalgia, Post-Canon, Retrospective, Specifically Eternal Punishment, Tooth-Rotting Fluff, Warm and Fuzzy Feelings, i just wanted suou bros fluff please let a man live, ish????, soft
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-15
Updated: 2017-08-15
Packaged: 2018-12-15 17:19:16
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,116
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11810631
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bukkunkun/pseuds/bukkunkun
Summary: The day he gives his brother away, Katsuya reminisces on the past.(slightly canon compliant.)





	notches

**Author's Note:**

> I'm not explicit with who Tatsuya is with, so it's up to you who you want him to be with romantically. Float your own ships, my friends.
> 
> I just wanted sweet fluffy Suou bros fluff and comfortable warm kidfic with the slight twinge of angst. School's exhausting me, and depression isn't helping. So I wrote this, while blasting Nicki Minaj's discography. Don't ask.
> 
> Please enjoy!

Calloused fingers, rough with a gun held in them secure like holsters, brushed against notches dug into a wooden pole that served as a hanger rack stand. Dark eyes scanned the lines, each one of them marking higher than the last, until they reached to just above his head, stopping at exactly 181 centimetres, and he blinked at the sight of it.

He didn’t remember putting that there.

He looked down at the bottom of the rungs the lines made, stopping at roughly 83 centimetres, Tatsuya’s name written on it in childish scrawls, characters messy and unclean.

Smiling, Katsuya knelt down to look at it, tracing the characters. Tatsuya didn’t write this—he did.

He remembered that day—Tatsuya had scratched the pole with a pair of scissors he’d been running around with—another long story, Katsuya thought with some amused dryness—and when the wood chipped off, so did the childlike glee that possessed the little boy at the tender age of 6. Katsuya had been chasing after him, panicked at the thought of Tatsuya running around with the kitchen scissors, wielding them like a sword, and the two of them completely stopped at the sight of the damage the boy caused.

The first thing Katsuya did, mercifully, was take the scissors from the boy. Tatsuya barely noticed, instead gawking at the pie-like cut he left in the wood.

Tatsuya then proceeded to cry.

And _then_ Katsuya panicked.

Panic wasn’t something he was completely able to properly handle at 13, and Katsuya ended up bundling his little brother and then himself into the closet, sliding to the floor shaking in his own shorts and slippers, hugging him close to himself as Tatsuya continued to cry. Eventually the younger boy calmed down into quiet little sniffles, cuddled against Katsuya’s soaked t-shirt, and silence lapsed between them for a long time before he spoke again.

“Mom and dad are gonna be so mad at us.” Tatsuya mumbled into Katsuya’s shirt, and the boy nodded weakly. “They’re gonna hate me.”

The second sentence was quieter, shaky with fear and grief, and Katsuya shook his head, hugging the boy closer to himself.

“Well, they’re gonna have to hate _me_ first.” he said, and he wasn’t sure if what he was saying was making any sense, but Tatsuya was looking up at him with such _wonder_ in his eyes, that it made his chest ache. “I-I’m your big brother, Tatsu. I’ll protect you.”

In the end, their mother found them, on the verge of filing a missing persons report to her husband in the police station. After the scolding of a lifetime, the whole time spent hand-in-hand, the boys looked over the damage again with their mother, and much to their surprise, she began giggling.

“Oh, would you look at that.” She said, and she drew an imaginary line connecting the notch in the pole to right above Tatsuya’s head. “It’s just as tall as you are.”

“Huh.” Katsuya blinked, and watched her pick up a craft knife from their father’s study table. Much to his surprise, she handed him the knife, and gestured at the line Tatsuya took out of the wooden pole. “Mom?”

“Tell you two what,” she said, smiling. “Let’s start a tradition. Every once in a while, let’s mark on the pole how tall you are, so you two can see which one of you is the taller one!”

“Katsuya’s cheating!” Tatsuya immediately protested, and Katsuya blew him a raspberry.

“Go write Tatsuya’s name on top of the line, Katsuya, and then I’ll make your line when you finish.”

Katsuya did as he was told, writing Tatsuya’s name as best as he could into the wood above the line. Tatsuya pouted at him as he stood next to the pole, proudly straightening up to let their mother mark his height on the pole, far above Tatsuya’s line. He grinned as their mother wrote his name, much more neatly than he had done with Tatsuya’s name and he huffed proudly when she finished off, nodding in approval.

“There we go.” She said, “Now, the next time you break something at home, you tell me immediately, okay?”

The boys nodded, and she strode away, taking the knife with her. Tatsuya punched his brother lightly in the side, and Katsuya jumped away from him, scowling.

“What was that for?”

“I’m gonna beat you someday.” Tatsuya mumbled, and Katsuya smirked back at him.

“I’d like to see you try.”

And try he did, Katsuya thought with amusement, looking up from Tatsuya’s first line to find the second one, having shot up from 83 centimetres to almost 120, his name written much more neatly than before.

That day was in the middle of summer, when Tatsuya had been 8, and Katsuya was 15. The heat haze shimmered over overheated asphalt in the afternoons, and the Alaya Shrine was almost always empty, save for four young children, who never played together without donning their masks. Tatsuya came home with his red Featherman mask hanging from his wrist, demanding Katsuya to make a line of his height on the pole like they used to.

The older brother grumbled—he was just about to enter high school, cramming like his life depended on it for the Sevens entrance exam, but Tatsuya insistently tugged at his shirt. The heat burned its way to under Katsuya’s skin, and sweat made his shirt cling to him like a second skin, easily riling him up with anger and annoyance.

“The hell, Tatsu,” he growled, after the third _yank_ from Tatsuya on his favourite shirt, and he finally turned around to his little brother glowering at him. “What do you want.” He said flatly, and the boy huffed.

“Eikichi said he’d be taller than me soon enough.” Tatsuya said, and Katsuya had to ransack his head to remember which of his friends Eikichi was. “I wanna make sure he won’t be.”

“So you’re gonna have me mark your height on the pole.” He replied, unimpressed, and Tatsuya crossed his eyes, looking straight back into his eyes with an infuriatingly even expression.

“Scared I’ll be taller than you?” Said the 8-year-old to the 15-year-old in the middle of his growth spurt, and Katsuya smirked.

“I’ll show you who’s taller.” He said, and grabbed the craft knife from its spot, hurrying to the pole with Tatsuya to mark his little brother’s height on the pole.

Tatsuya did his best, puffing out his chest and standing as tall as he could without standing on tiptoes, staring at Katsuya with determination as the older brother marked his height, and when he was done, he scurried out from underneath Katsuya’s hand to inspect the line intently, as if that was the secret to growing taller.

Katsuya, huffing proudly, stood next to the pole and marked his height (adding a generous few millimetres), before moving away to inspect their height difference.

Of course, the difference was obvious. Katsuya was quickly outgrowing his clothes, and at 15, he had breached 160 centimetres easily. A few more years, and he could maybe make it to 180. Smugly he wrote down his name on top of his line, and then Tatsuya’s on top of his, and his little brother frowned angrily at it.

“I win.” He grinned, and Tatsuya stormed off, huffing angrily, mentioning something along the lines of ‘Jun’s not taller than me, at least’, and Katsuya couldn’t remember which one was Jun again—the one with the pink mask? Eh, he wasn’t very good at this.

Katsuya laughed to himself softly. The pink mask, he had thought back then, and for a good half-year, he had mistaken Lisa for Jun, and the other way around. That was the first time Katsuya made a girl cry—at 15, no less, and he looked back on it fondly, even if it was at Lisa’s expense.

He moved up more lines on the pole, intermittent recordings of his and Tatsuya’s heights as the years passed by. He traced fingers over the higher lines—there was a pair that was the last one before Katsuya’s high school graduation, and his soft smile turned down into a frown.

His mother had been… _proud_ would have been a strange word to call it. It felt like a ventriloquist’s puppet speaking to him with a fake voice and a fake smile when she said “Katsuya, you’ll be a police officer like your father,” that day he told her what he spoke with Mr. Kashihara about.

His father, a beer in hand, and practically invisible in their bedroom, made no comment.

Tatsuya looked at him with wide eyes, like his words were the sounds of betrayal, and Katsuya thought he had probably made a mistake.

“C’mon, Tatsuya, for old times’ sake?” He asked, gakuran missing a button, placed in the hand of his little brother during his graduation ceremony. It was nighttime now, the rush of finishing high school had died down to give way to the growing dread of college entry, and Katsuya wanted to hold on tightly the last few hours of the freedom his youth offered him.

Tatsuya gave him a withering look, his brother’s button in his hand like a heavy weight, but he silently nodded, letting Katsuya pull him through the house until they got to the pole. He pulled Tatsuya to stand beside the pole, humming softly as he marked the boy’s height—just a little more, he thought proudly, and he would be the same height as he was when he entered high school. Tatsuya remained pouting through it all, but he did take a look at the notch Katsuya made, marking it with Tatsuya’s name before handing the knife to him.

“Your turn.” He said, and Tatsuya rolled his eyes, but did as he was told, leaning up as best as he could to mark Katsuya’s height on the pole, just a little over half a plastic ruler above his own. Tatsuya jumped slightly, and Katsuya cocked his head at him, pulling away from the pole to watch a few threads of his hair fall down onto the ground.

“I… uh…” Tatsuya blinked. “I didn’t mean to do that.”

Katsuya choked back his laughter, shaky little syllables escaping his pursed lips, and he ruffled Tatsuya’s hair.

“Next time, I’ll get a haircut myself, okay?”

For a time, Katsuya regretted the fact that was the last of the silliest things he’d said to Tatsuya, and the next set of lines were also the most recent. He brushed his fingers over the one he made not too long ago, when the threat of the New World Order was just extinguished the day before, and he had the longest and deepest sleep he’d ever had in ages.

It felt like _years_ since he last talked to Tatsuya, like they weren’t ghosts avoiding each other anymore. The night the world didn’t end was the night Katsuya’s life felt like it resumed, like the press of a ‘play’ button that both did and didn’t exist in the paradox that was his little brother.

Tatsuya was his Tatsuya—but also not. A moody, distant little brother, and a tortured soul. A contradictory blip in reality, an innocent amnesic that needed protection.

He’d forgotten what it felt like to have a little brother. Tatsuya had forgotten what it felt like to have an older one.

That night, he pulled him into a hug, and was not pushed away. There was no, “cut it out, big brother,” or “what’s going on?” or even cold disregard. Somehow, even after having forgotten _everything,_ Tatsuya somehow _knew_.

It broke Katsuya’s heart and put it back together, every single contradictory second, every movement of his chest with his laboured breaths.

Before sleep took him, Katsuya looked at the markings, and made a new one, etching memories both real and fake into wood that was both true and false. He didn’t write his name—he didn’t need to; he knew he wouldn’t grow any taller than he would, and that was fine.

This was fine, he thought, and marked history in the darkness of the room, the lights dim to the point where the only light was by the bedside where Tatsuya already slept.

Like that, Tatsuya glowed like the Sun of his arcana, and Katsuya couldn’t help but smile at it.

Apollo whispered warmth in the negative spaces between realities, and Helios answered with soft, crooning tunes of security, of protection.

And then Katsuya slept the most comfortably he had ever slept in years.

He brushed his fingers over the new mark again. And now there was this new piece of history, clean and precise, nothing like the crafting knife the brothers used so often when they were younger. It was above Katsuya’s last marking, just a few centimetres higher, and he wondered why he never noticed it.

(The dark, Helios purred, the rumble of motorcycle engines, the waft of burning gasoline. History made in the dark will be forgotten until the dawn of light.)

He shut his eyes, brow creasing as he pinched the bridge of his nose under his glasses.

Who did this wasn’t the question—that height was Tatsuya’s—now he was a little higher than 185, but _back then_ , he had been that exact height, wielding a katana sharper than the slice of winter’s cold.

It was _how,_ and most importantly— _when._

“Big brother?”

Katsuya jumped, whirling around to see Tatsuya, and his heart swelled at the sight of him—a black suit, a rose corsage pinned to the pocket, shuffling nervously on his feet.

Tatsuya, on his wedding day. Katsuya had dreamed of it, but he never quite prepared himself for the sight of it.

“Ah, Tatsuya.” He smiled softly, wiping at the corner of his eyes, stepping away from the pole to see Tatsuya’s expression melt into a concerned frown.

“You okay?” He asked, and a few years ago, Katsuya wouldn’t dream of hearing that from him.

They’d both grown, it seemed.

“I’m fine.” He replied tenderly, and Tatsuya looked at the pole behind him.

“Oh, you were looking at this…” He said, walking up to it to inspect the pole. “Hey, Katsuya?”

“Yes?”

Tatsuya turned at him, a small smile on his face. “For old times’ sake?” He asked, gingerly holding out a craft knife, and Katsuya laughed, a tiny huff of breath that could barely qualify as one, but the brothers knew better.

“I haven’t grown since the last mark,” he said, but he was already taking the knife from Tatsuya, guiding the brunet towards the pole to stand next to it. “You’re… really tall now, aren’t you?”

Tatsuya nodded, and Katsuya batted his arm playfully. “Hold still.”

“You have grown.” Tatsuya said quietly after Katsuya pulled away, and the man blinked at him. “Maybe not in height, but…” He fell quiet, and pulled out his lighter, nervously clicking it. “You know.”

Tatsuya had never been good with words. Hell, it was a miracle he was even talking like that, and Katsuya smiled fondly at him.

“Thank you.” He said, and Tatsuya deflated in relief.

They were brothers, after all. They understood each other, to some extent.

Katsuya handed Tatsuya the knife, and stood next to the pole.

“No dice.” The younger man said. “Still the same height.”

“See?” Katsuya chuckled, pulling away to inspect again the extra four centimetres Tatsuya grew after the clean rung at 181 centimetres. “185. You're so tall now. Even taller than me.”

“Yeah…” Tatsuya replied. “Hey, about that last one…”

Katsuya watched him approach it, running his fingers over the unnamed, clean mark. “You know, I had a dream about making this mark.”

Katsuya’s eyes widened.

“It was at night. You were asleep. These two ladies were on the couch, and another guy was on the ground.” Tatsuya studied the mark, as if trying to remember something from a very hazy memory. “I made this mark using a katana.”

Tatsuya—the _other_ Tatsuya, he meant—had a katana. Katsuya knew—it was hanging from the wall at that very moment, unsheathed and altered just the very slight bit, the handle design changed and the sheath hidden away from Tatsuya’s eyes.

“Oh?” Katsuya blinked, and the younger man snorted.

“Weird, right?” He said. “This cut’s too clean. I wouldn’t be able to do that.” He shook his head, “Sorry, I must’ve been watching too much heist films.”

“Yes…” Katsuya deflated, unseen by his brother, but he was smiling. “You must have.”

 _The other_ Tatsuya did it. They had talked about the pole, about how he and his own Katsuya did the same thing on the Other Side. He hoped they had as good a relationship as he did now with his own Tatsuya, even if there were huge gaps between their narratives, covered with stopgaps in the shape of golden butterfly lies.

He hoped the other Tatsuya was happy.

“Well, anyway.” Tatsuya grew awkward in situations like this quickly, Katsuya thought with no small amount of fondness, and the younger man scratched the back of his neck. “I guess it’s time to go.”

“Wouldn’t want to keep the attendees waiting.” Katsuya nodded, pushing his glasses up the bridge of his nose. “Come on now.”

He waved at Tatsuya to follow him, but much to his surprise, he took his hand instead to hold it. Katsuya blinked at him, and he blushed slightly.

“This is… basically the last day that you’re my only family.” He said. “After this, you can’t monopolise me anymore.”

Katsuya laughed softly—of course, of course. Tatsuya knew what he was thinking.

“I don’t think I ever have monopolised you.” He replied, patting his hand in his. “I don’t think anyone _can_.”

The brothers shared a look, and Katsuya shook his head fondly.

“Live a happily married life, little brother.” He said, “I’m happy for you, with whomever you choose to live the rest of your life with.” His cheeks warmed up in embarrassment. “I… I’ve never been prouder of you, than this very moment.”

Tatsuya couldn’t quite meet his eye, but neither could Katsuya, really.

“Yeah, I…” He hesitated, and finally smiled. “Thanks. It… means a lot to hear that from you.”

“I’m your big brother, Tatsu.” Katsuya replied, and it felt like decades ago again, warm and innocent on a summer day as they stood together at the porch of their home. “I’ll protect you.”

Tatsuya gave him one last grin, and stepped forward, heading towards the limousine. Katsuya watched him leave, sighing against the doorframe, but he jumped when he saw Tatsuya look back at him over his shoulder, a gentle smile on his face.

“I know you will.”

**Author's Note:**

> writing [the casino au](http://archiveofourown.org/works/11252271) is exhausting, good god.


End file.
